Masters of CinemaReleasing *RARE* Fellini & Kubrick

Twitter: @mastersofcinema

I sincerely hope everybody reading this has had a fulfilling Christmas and began the new year feeling positive, looking ahead. Now the inevitable hangovers are (surely) out of the way and the dense cheery food just about recovered from - it's time to treat your brains instead of your stomachs with two standout pre-orders from the Masters of Cinema (Eureka Video) label for the beginning of the year.

If you weren't aware, let me tell you that The Masters of Cinema series is seriously important and worth investing in as much as you can. They perpetuate and restore your love for cinema with exquisite stylistic packaging and immaculate booklets filled with treasures of forgotten classics or hidden gems. I simply cannot promote the label enough to you, especially now they're delivering unparalleled blu-rays showcasing some of the greatest works as they deserve to be seen, in HD. The blu-rays sets also come with a Standard DVD version and gorgeous limited edition steelbooks for some. These new titles will be no exception to the usual quality I've come to expect. A short-while ago I even e-mailed them commending their fine work and recieved a personally written e-mail back, explaining my supportive words had been circulated around their team. It's good to know that with a few clicks of a keyboard your words can genuinely reach someone to tell them how pleased you are with something they're doing.

Without further ado - coming our way are two very rare, sought-after films from unadulterated cinematic artists. Fellini's 1980s fantastical exploration of the opposite sex CITY OF WOMEN (1980) at the tail end of his career and Kubrick's debut feature FEAR AND DESIRE (1953) also getting a small theatrical re-release (of which the poster is below). The FEAR AND DESIRE (1953) DVD set also includes three short works from Kubrick! I can't review the features as I'll be experiencing them for the first time on DVD when they're out, though I can tell you that they undoubtedly plug a vital hole for the UK market for both filmographies. These will be worthy off attention and adding to all collections come January / February:

Federico Fellini’s epic 1980 fantasia introduced the start of the Maestro’s delirious late period. A surrealist tour-de-force filmed on soundstages and locations alike, and overflowing with the same sensory (and sensual) invention heretofore found only in the classic movie-musicals (and Fellini’s own oeuvre)...

Marcello Mastroianni appears as Fellini’s alter ego in a semi-reprise of his character from 8-1/2, Snàporaz. As though passing into a dream, the charismatic avatar finds himself initiated into a phantasmagoric world where women — or an idea of women — have taken power, and which is structured like an array of psychosexual set-pieces...

A great adventure “through the looking-glass,” as it were, of Fellini’s own phallic lens and life-long libidinal ruminations, La città delle donnesharply divided critics at the 1980 Festival de Cannes, some of whom had merely anticipated a nostalgic retread of the earlier Mastroianni works. What they were greeted with, and what remains today, is, in the words of Serge Daney, “a victory of cinema”. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present La città delle donne on Blu-ray and DVD in Gaumont’s glorious new HD restoration.

Independently financed with contributions from Stanley Kubrick’s family & friends in an era when an “independent cinema” was still far from the norm... Now, with this new restoration... a film that for decades has remained nearly impossible to see will at last appear in a proper release in the United Kingdom.Kubrick’s debut feature tells the story of a war waged (in the present? in the future?) between two forces. In the midst of the conflict, a plane carrying four soldiers crashes behind enemy lines. From here out, it is kill or be killed: a female hostage is taken on account of being a potential informer; an enemy general and his aide are discovered during a scouting mission… What lies in store for this ragtag group of killers, between their perilous landing in the forest, & the final raft-float downstream…

Bringing into focus for the first time the same thematic concerns that would obsess the director in such masterworks as Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket, Fear and Desire marks the outset of the dazzling career & near-complete artistic freedom which to this day remains unparalleled in the annals of Hollywood history. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire in its gorgeous new restoration on both Blu-ray and DVD.-http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/-